‘Trust me, your worship: I’ll do it, and no mistake. Lor’ bless you, it’s easy for anybody now to go lounging about Fleet Street, without being taken much notice of for the fact is, the whole place is agog about the horrid smell, as has been for never so long in the old church of St Dunstan.’
‘Smell, smell, in St Dunstan’s church! I never heard of that before, Crotchet.’
‘O Lor’ yes, it’s enough to poison the devil himself, Sir Richard; and t’other day, when the blessed bishop went to firm a lot of people, he as good as told ’em they might all be damned first, afore he ’firm nobody in such a place.’
The magistrate was in deep thought for a few minutes, and then he said suddenly, –
‘Well, well, Crotchet, you turn the matter over in your mind and see what you can make of it; I will think it over, likewise. Do you hear? Mind you are with me at six this evening punctually; I do not intend to let the matter rest, you may depend, but from that moment will give it my greatest attention.’
‘Wery good, yer worship, wery good indeed. I’ll be here, and something seems to strike me uncommon forcible that we shall unearth this very soon, yer worship.’
‘I sincerely hope so.’
Mr Crotchet took his leave, and when he was alone the magistrate rose and paced his apartment for some time with rapid strides, as if he were much agitated by the reflections that were passing through his mind. At length he flung himself into a chair with something like a groan, as he said, –
‘A horrible idea forces itself upon my consideration, most horrible! most horrible! most horrible! Well, well, we shall see, we shall see. It may not be so; and yet what a hideous probability stares me in the face! I will go down at once to St Dunstan’s and see what they are really about. Yes, yes, I shall not get much sleep, I think now, until some of these mysteries are developed. A most horrible idea, truly!’
The magistrate left some directions at home concerning some business calls which he fully expected in the course of the next two hours, and then he put on a plain, sad-coloured cloak and a hat destitute of all ornament, and left his house with a rapid step.
He took the most direct route towards St Dunstan’s church, and finding the door of the sacred edifice yielded to the touch, he at once entered it; but he had not advanced many steps before he was met and accosted by the beadle, who said, in a tone of great dignity and authority, –
‘This ain’t Sunday, sir; there ain’t no service here today.’
‘I don’t suppose there is,’ replied the magistrate; ‘but I see you have workmen here. What is it you are about?’
‘Well, of all the impudence that ever I came near this is the worstest – to ask a beadle what he is about. I beg to say, sir, this here is quite private, and there’s the door.’
‘Yes, I see it, and you may go out at it just as soon as you think proper.’
‘Oh, conwulsions! oh, conwulsions! This to a beadle.’
‘What is all this about?’ said a gentlemanly-looking man, stepping forward from a part of the church where several masons were employed in raising some of the huge flagstones with which it was paved. ‘What disturbance is this?’
‘I believe, Mr Antrobus, you know me,’ said the magistrate.
‘Oh, Sir Richard, certainly. How do you do?’
‘Gracious!’ said the beadle, ‘I’ve put my blessed foot in it. Lor’ bless us, sir, how should I know as you was Sir Richard? I begs as you won’t think nothing o’ what I said. If I had a knowed you, in course I shouldn’t have said it, you may depend, Sir Richard – I humbly begs your pardon.’
‘It’s of no consequence, I ought to have announced myself; and you are perfectly justified in keeping strangers out of the church, my friend.’
The magistrate walked up the aisle with Mr Antrobus, who was one of the churchwardens; and as he did so, he said, in a low, confidential tone of voice, –
‘I have heard some strange reports about a terrible stench in the church. What does it mean? I suppose you know all about it, and what it arises from?’
‘Indeed I do not. If you have heard that there is a horrible smell in the church after it has been shut up some time, and upon the least change in the weather, from dry to wet, or cold to warm, you know as much as we know upon the subject. It is a most serious nuisance, and, in fact, my presence here today is to try and make some discovery of the cause of the stench; and you see we are going to work our way into some of the old vaults that have not been opened for some time, with a hope of finding out the cause of this disagreeable odour.’
‘Have you any objection to my being a spectator?’
‘None in the least.’
‘I thank you. Let us now join the workmen, and I can only now tell you that I feel the strongest possible curiosity to ascertain what can be the meaning of all this, and shall watch the proceedings with the greatest amount of interest.’
‘Come along, then; I can only say, for my part, that, as an individual, I am glad you are here, and as a magistrate, likewise, it gives me great satisfaction to have you.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tobias’s Escape from Mr Fogg’s Establishment
The rage into which Mr Fogg was thrown by the attack which the desperate Tobias had made upon his representative Mr Watson, was so great that, had it not been for the presence of stupid old Dr Popplejoy in the house, no doubt he would have taken some most exemplary revenge upon him. As it was, however, Tobias was thrown into his cell with a promise of vengeance as soon as the coast was clear.
These were the kind of promises which Mr Fogg was pretty sure to keep, and when the first impulse of his passion had passed away, poor Tobias, as well indeed he might, gave himself up to despair.
‘Now all is over,’ he said; ‘I shall be half murdered! Oh, why do they not kill me at once? There would be some mercy in that. Come and murder me at once, you wretches! You villains, murder me at once!’
In his new excitement, he rushed to the door of the cell, and banged it with his fists, when to his surprise it opened, and he found himself nearly falling into the stone corridor from which the various cell doors opened. It was evident that Mr Watson thought he had locked him in, for the bolt of the lock was shot back but had missed its hold – a circumstance probably arising from the state of rage and confusion Mr Watson was in, as a consequence of Tobias’s daring attack upon him.
It almost seemed to the boy as if he had already made some advance towards his freedom, when he found himself in the narrow passage beyond his cell-door, but his heart for some minutes beat so tumultuously with the throng of blissful associations connected with freedom that it was quite impossible for him to proceed.
A slight noise, however, in another part of the building roused him again, and he felt that it was only now by great coolness and self-possession, as well as great courage, that he could at all hope to turn to account the fortunate incident which had enabled him, at all events, to make that first step towards liberty.
‘Oh, if I could but get out of this dreadful place,’ he thought; ‘if I could but once again breathe the pure fresh air of heaven, and see the deep blue sky, I think I should ask for no other blessings.’
Never do the charms of nature present themselves to the imagination in more lovely guise than when someone with an imagination full of such beauties and a mind to appreciate the glories of the world is shut up from real, actual contemplation. To Tobias now the thought of green fields, sunshine and flowers, was at once rapture and agony.
‘I must,’ he said, ‘I must – I will be free.’
A thorough determination to do anything, we are well convinced, always goes a long way towards its accomplishment; and certainly Tobias now would cheerfully have faced death in any shape, rather than he would again have been condemned to the solitary horrors of the cell, from which he had by such a chance got free.
He conjectured the stupid old Dr Popplejoy had not left the house by the unusual quiet that reigned in it, and he began to wonder i
f, while that quiet subsisted, there was the remotest chance of his getting into the garden, and then scaling the wall, and so reaching the open common.
While this thought was establishing itself in his mind, and he was thinking that he would pursue the passage in which he was until he saw where it led to, he heard the sound of footsteps, and he shrank back.
For a few seconds they appeared as if they were approaching where he was; and he began to dread that the cell would be searched, and his absence discovered, in which there would be no chance for him but death. Suddenly, however, the approaching footsteps paused, and then he heard a door banged shut.
It was still, even now, some minutes before Tobias could bring himself to traverse the passage again, and when he did, it was with a slow and stealthy step.
He had not, however, gone above thirty paces, when he heard the indistinct murmur of voices, and being guided by the sound, he paused at a door on his right hand, which he thought must be the one he had heard closed but a few minutes previously.
It was from the interior of the room which that was the door of, that the sound of voices came, and as it was a matter of the very first importance to Tobias to ascertain in what part of the house his enemies were, he placed his ear against the panel, and listened attentively.
He recognised both the voices: they were those of Watson and Fogg.
It was a very doubtful and ticklish situation that poor Tobias was now in, but it was wonderful how, by dint of strong resolution, he had stilled the beating of his heart, and the general nervousness of his disposition. There was but a frail door between him and his enemies, and yet he stood profoundly still and listened.
Mr Fogg was speaking.
‘You quite understand me, Watson: I think,’ he said, ‘as concerns that little viper Tobias Ragg, he is too cunning, and much too dangerous, to live long. He almost staggered old superannuated Popplejoy.’
‘Oh, confound him!’ replied Watson, ‘and he quite staggered me.’
‘Why, certainly your face is rather scratched.’
‘Yes, the little devil! but it’s all in the way of business that, Mr Fogg, and you never heard me grumble at such little matters yet; and I’ll be bound never will, that’s more.’
‘I give you credit for that, Watson; but between you and I, I think the disease of that boy is of a nature that will carry him off very suddenly.’
‘I think so too,’ said Watson, with a chuckle.
‘It strikes me forcibly that he will be found dead in his bed some morning, and I should not in the least wonder if that was tomorrow morning: what’s your opinion, Watson?’
‘Oh, damn it, what’s the use of all this round-about nonsense between us? The boy is to die, and there’s an end of it, and die he shall, during the night – I owe him a personal grudge of course now.’
‘Of course you do – he has disfigured you.’
‘Has he? Well, I can return the compliment, and I say, Mr Fogg, my opinion is, that it’s very dangerous having these medical inspections you have such a fancy for.’
‘My dear fellow, it is dangerous, that I know as well as you can tell me, but it is from that danger we gather safety. If anything in the shape of a disturbance should arise about any patient, you don’t know of what vast importance a report from such a man as old Dr Popplejoy might be.’
‘Well, well, have it your own way. I shall not go near Master Tobias for the whole day, and shall see what starvation and solitude does towards taming him down a bit.’
‘As you please; but it is time you went your regular rounds.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Tobias heard Watson rise. The crisis was a serious one. His eye fell upon a bolt that was outside the door, and, with the quickness of thought, he shot it into its socket, and then made his way down the passage towards his cell, the door of which he shut close.
His next movement was to run to the end of the passage and descend some stairs. A door opposed him, but a push opened it, and he found himself in a small, dimly-lighted room, in one corner of which, upon a heap of straw, lay a woman, apparently sleeping.
The noise which Tobias made in entering the cell, for such it was, roused her up, and she said, –
‘Oh! no, no, not the lash! not the lash! I am quiet. God, how quiet I am, although the heart within is breaking. Have mercy upon me!’
‘Have mercy upon me,’ said Tobias, ‘and hide me if you can.’
‘Hide you! hide you! God of Heavens, who are you?’
‘A poor victim, who has escaped from one of the cells, and I –’
‘Hush!’ said the woman; and she made Tobias shrink down in the corner of the cell, cleverly covering him up with the straw, and then lying down herself in such a position that he was completely screened. The precaution was not taken a moment too soon, for by the time it was completed, Watson had burst open the door of the room which Tobias had bolted, and stood in the narrow passage.
‘How the devil,’ he said, ‘came that door shut, I wonder?’
‘Oh! save me,’ whispered Tobias.
‘Hush! hush! He will only look in,’ was the answer. ‘You are safe. I have been only waiting for someone who could assist me, in order to attempt an escape. You must remain here until night, and then I will show you how it may be done. Hush! – he comes.’
Watson did come, and looked into the cell, muttering an oath, as he said, –
‘Oh, you have enough bread and water till tomorrow morning, I should say; so you need not expect to see me again till then.’
‘Oh! we are saved! we shall escape,’ said the poor creature, after Watson had been gone some minutes.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, yes! Oh, boy, I do not know what brought you here, but if you have suffered one-tenth part of the cruelty and oppression I have suffered, you are indeed to be pitied.’
‘If we are to stay here,’ said Tobias, ‘till night, before making any attempt to escape, it will, perhaps, ease your mind, and beguile the time, if you were to tell me how you came here.’
‘God knows! it might – it might!’
Tobias was very urgent upon the poor creature to tell her story, to beguile the tedium of the time of waiting, and after some amount of persuasion she consented to do so.
The Mad Woman’s Tale
You shall now hear (she said to Tobias), if you will listen, such a catalogue of wrongs, unredressed and still enduring, that would indeed drive any human being mad; but I have been able to preserve so much of my mental faculties as will enable me to recollect and understand the many acts of cruelty and injustice I have endured here for many a long and weary day.
My persecutions began when I was very young – so young that I could not comprehend their cause, and used to wonder why I should be treated with greater rigour or with greater cruelty than people used to treat those who were really disobedient and wayward children.
I was scarcely seven years old when a maiden aunt died; she was the only person whom I remember as being uniformly kind to me, though I can only remember her indistinctly, yet I know she was kind to me. I know also I used to visit her, and she used to look upon me as her favourite, for I used to sit at her feet upon a stool, watching her as she sat amusing herself by embroidering, silent and motionless sometimes, and then I asked her some questions which she answered.
This is the chief feature of my recollection of my aunt: she soon after died, but while she lived, I had no unkindness from anybody; it was only after that that I felt the cruelty and coldness of my family.
It appeared that I was a favourite with my aunt above all others whether in our family or any other; she loved me, and promised that, when she died, she would leave me provided for, and that I should not be dependent upon anyone.
Well, I was, from the day after the funeral, an altered being. I was neglected, and no one paid any attention to me whatsoever; I was thrust about, and nobody appeared to care even if I had the necessaries of life.
Such a chang
e I could not understand. I could not believe the evidence of my own senses; I thought it must be something that I did not understand; perhaps my poor aunt’s death had caused this distress and alteration in people’s demeanour to me.
However, I was a child, and though I was quick enough at noting all this, yet I was too young to feel acutely the conduct of my friends.
My father and mother were careless of me, and let me run where I would; they cared not when I was hurt, they cared not when I was in danger. Come what would, I was left to take my chance.
I recollect one day when I had fallen from the top to the bottom of some stairs and hurt myself very much; but no one comforted me; I was thrust out of the drawing-room, because I cried. I then went to the top of the stairs, where I sat weeping bitterly for some time.
At length, an old servant came out of one of the attics, and said, ‘Oh! Miss Mary, what has happened to you, that you sit crying so bitterly on the stair-head? Come in here!’
I arose and went into the attic with her, when she set me on a chair, and busied herself with my bruises, and said to me, ‘Now, tell me what you are crying about, and why did they turn you out of the drawing-room, tell me now?’
‘Ay,’ said I, ‘they turned me out because I cried when I was hurt. I fell all the way down stairs, but they don’t mind.’
‘No, they do not, and yet in many families they would have taken more care of you than they do here!’
‘And why do you think they would have done so?’ I enquired.
‘Don’t you know what good fortune has lately fallen into your lap? I thought you knew all about it.’
‘I don’t know anything, save they are very unkind to me lately.’
‘They have been very unkind to you, child, and I am sure I don’t know why, nor can I tell you why they have not told you of your fortune.’
‘My fortune,’ said I; ‘what fortune?’
The String of Pearls Page 27